“What else is there to do?” Colleen asked, feeding more money into the machine.
“Anything but this,” Greg answered, scanning the establishment for familiar faces.
“Well, let me know your suggestion when you have it,” she said cordially, without a hint of the attitude the same phrase would have cut from someone else.
Colleen grew up in Sage Springs, she had recently returned to town after achieving her degree in marine biology. In exchange for paying her college tuition, her parents indentured her to work in administrative servitude at their inland agricultural empire of cattle ranches and potato farms. They had hired Greg to replace Colleen’s brother who now enjoyed his four years of freedom in college, doing the odd, half menial, half discerning tasks that only the farm owner’s son gets to do. Greg found the work slightly more tolerable than home, as he shared his friend’s perception that the place afforded a decent holdover until he decided what to do with his life. Yet that question seemed to grow larger the longer he stayed there.
During the fitful sleep that night after the revelation with Wendy, Greg’s mind traipsed around the same idea he wouldn’t accept, to hightail it out of there, trailer in tow with all that was left of their ‘valuables’ and head back home. But when he followed that thought out of the woods it strayed into different scenarios. In one dream he stopped at the farm only to pick up his brothers. They stocked up with weapons and returned to wage a Rambo-like siege on the mountain folk. In another scenario he drove to California, stopping at all the places Ray had mentioned, hunting him down like a private investigator until eventually they sat drinking fruity cocktails at a beach side tikki bar at sunset, surrounded by the bikini-clad natives.
Unfortunately, he had yet to make a real decision by the time the sun rose on the real day with Wendy surprisingly still there beside him. So he channeled his energy to assess the shed and start cleaning out the trailer. At this point he expected much worse, but the dredging equipment was intact. Looking around he could only locate a missing saw, hose, and other odds and ends anyone could easily pick up at a neighborhood hardware store. He affixed the door the best he could and started cleaning out the trailer. He had it pretty well squared away by the time he heard the front door close, and watched Wendy check her surroundings before she disappeared into the woods with more haste than usual. He couldn’t help himself but look for the spatula when he entered the house after her, but she must have forgotten her need for it because it remained where he left it by the sink. Within two hours he was heading down the mountain with what was left of Ray’s alarm system activated.
He found himself instinctively driving towards Sage Springs, initially thinking of it as a holdover destination, but as he passed through the potato and onion fields where workers prepared the soil for spring, a better solution to home came into perspective. He knew his value in the ag world ever minute he spent in the woods. Ray was not the only one to swing by mom’s farm to see if they could borrow Greg for an afternoon.
Greg found himself work within two days of rolling into the agricultural outskirts of Sage Springs. He parked the trailer a half mile from the Shaughnessy Farms headquarters and felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction at his ability to establish himself so quickly.
He called Ray’s sister two weeks after the move. The delay ate at him, but not enough to motivate him to make the fated call he knew would only make things worse. Though his friend waited for the information needed to bring him home, only Greg knew it would do no good and reasoned that he had let his friend enjoy another week of vacation before the reality set in. After the first week of work he had officially transitioned from farm hand to son in law in the eyes of Mr. Shaughnessy and Greg started to wonder if maybe he could make enough money back to front his friend the money to return. But then after another week he realized that too would take time so he unfolded the letter with Ray’s sister’s number and made the call.
She sounded a little sour to Greg while explaining that his friend had waited a week and then caught a ride with a friend in the general direction of Sunny Springs. Greg apologized and then rambled out the version of the story he had planned to say to Ray, how he looked for the bank information but couldn’t find it anywhere, and then realized that other things were missing. He inverted his visit to Phil’s to sound like he went there afterwards and only then found out that there were thieves in the woods. He even confessed that he felt part at fault since he would leave the door unlocked at times thinking no one else was around. He then gave her his number and told her to give it to Ray if he called.
After hanging up he started cleaning up the trailer in panic, planning to leave that moment in order to intercept Ray before he made it home if he was heading there. He feared what the family might do after he had abandoned Wendy, or if they found out that he had tattled on them. Ray might find himself crashing a surprise party at his own house. Worse still, others could have perceived that Greg was in on the deal. He made enough appearances with Wendy to raise eyebrows in town.
He calmed down once he remembered that Ray never went through town without first checking the mail so he sat down to write a letter. He retold the story in a similar way as he had related it to Ray’s sister, hoping that he hadn’t embellished the details differently in either account but reassuring himself that since it was mostly true he shouldn’t worry. He left his contact info directing Ray to contact him before he headed up to the cabin without him. That way he could just sit back, work, and wait for Ray to arrive.
Two months later, Greg sat antsy at a dive bar in downtown Sage Springs watching Colleen play the machines. “How about a road trip?” he asked her.
“Ha! Right before summer, they would love that.” Her gambling hobby aside, Colleen’s sense of duty and loyal responsibility to her family made her the picture of a perfect wife. Practical and sharp, she studied aquaculture in dreams to expand the family business beyond the land but then returned to reality ready to set in roots. Her family loved Greg, and she would too if he let her, but instead they kicked around town together, spent lunch breaks commiserating and then went their separate ways at night.
After Wendy, Colleen’s contrast seemed like bait to tie him to the land, and he looked at both suspiciously. Yet the comfort lulled him to remain through the summer, waiting every day to hear from Ray.
One day in late September he was helping Mr. Shaughnessy carve a new irrigation ditch. The two had engineered the thing as a literal ‘last ditch’ effort to save a plot sucked dry when firefighters tapped their water supply to stanch a wildfire that threatened the outskirts of Sage Springs. They had asked permission of course but My. Shaughnessy being a caring land steward had no real choice in the matter.
Greg, who felt himself an expert at dredging, rented a back hoe half the size as required, because Mr. Shaughnessy felt that all equipment rentals were rip-offs, and told him not to pay a cent over 1% of what it would cost to own. After doing the math this is what they ended up with.
Mr. Shaughnessy stood in what they had carved so far. Greg was at the controls. Neither could see for shit with the wind whipping the dust up and the sky amber in smoke from the wildfires. Everywhere around them, the machines dug up the onions and potatoes, adding to the brown haze of the day. They both wore bandannas over their faces.
“It needs to be at least 6 inches deeper,” Mr. Shaughnessy piped up again into his radio. He stood in the ditch with a useless shovel, nudging Greg on for one more scoop. Greg teetered on the edge of the embankment, knowing that the hoe had only so far it could go. He scraped air for only a moment when Mr. Shaughnessy said, “Pivot a little to the left,” and the cantilever gave way.
Greg held on; his head knocked around the machine in three places, first on the roof, then his brow on the windshield and his temple right in the jamb if the thing were to have doors before he was covered in dirt.
Shortly after, he heard a familiar voice say, “Don’t move sir, help is on the way,” addressing Mr. Shaughnessy, who was pinned under his own shovel.
Greg could hear other cars come driving up as someone stepped on his hand in an attempt to clear the dirt that buried him. “Greg, you OK?” said Ray.
“Get me out of here,” Greg replied.